Ashes Falling Down
by The Lonely Goddess
Summary: My fun take on House of Hades. Rated for suicide attempts and character death. Please R and R.


**Just got back from Sea of Monsters. It was pretty good. Not as bad as the first one...**

**I'm going to leave this here and barricade myself until Rick comes out with the official book and you guys will hate him more than me...**

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Annabeth ran towards the light that showed her friend's faces. Her heart reached out to them, but she knew what she had to do. Percy was needed more than her... She was going to push him through and slam the doors shut.

It hadn't taken long for her to decide that this was what she had to do. Percy needed to keep going and she would stay there until... There was no end to the torture she had faced with Percy. Only after she completed her goal she would have to face it alone...

Tears stabbed her eyes as they reached the doors. Annabeth planted her feet and Percy went running forward... His hand slipping from her.

It didn't take long for Percy to stop and turn towards her. "Annabeth!" he screamed, trying to get to her.

"I love you Seaweed Brain!" she cried out, tears cleaning her cheeks and she slammed the glowing bronze doors.

She had completed her mission. Percy was safe. Camp Half Blood would be safe. Her sacrifice wasn't in vain. And maybe someday... Those sea green eyes will glow from some small child's face... But they would never have her blonde hair. No child ever would...

Of course the monsters wouldn't allow her one moment of peace. She turned and held up her dagger, a fierce determination igniting in her eyes.

"ANNABETH!" Percy screamed, falling to his knees at the doors. "Why? Why did you do that?" he croaked weakly.

"Percy, she's strong." Nico said, bending down by him.

"Not that strong. No one is that strong Nico. Not even a God." Percy looked at him and his friend could see just how broken the months spent in Tartarus had made him.

Percy stood and walked away, his other friends parting and letting him through.

It only took them about a week and a half to get to Camp Half Blood and Percy was shocked to see that his friends had soothed the angry Romans. Percy drifted from the Argo II and went into the Big House. "Mr. D?" he choked.

"Yes... Percy Jackson?" Dionysus hesitated on using the boy's real name... But he needed it.

"Can I please have a drink?" he choked on his own tears that were scraping at his throat.

"Of course you can." and a glass of wine was placed in front of the hero of Olympus.

Percy drank it down in one swallow, ignoring the taste and just being grateful that he was becoming numb.

That was how his father found him. Sleeping off the alcohol and struggling through night mares.

Poseidon picked up his son and carried him to the cabin built in his honor then he sat and waited for Percy to wake up.

When Percy opened his eyes he saw his dad and instantly broke down sobbing. His father's strong arms wrapped around him. "I am so sorry Perseus. I truly am."

"I should've known." his hiccuped.

"No one could have known son."

"I should have!"

Poseidon just let his son cry until he was asleep, but he had to go. Zeus was holding a council meeting. So with one last fleeting look he vanished.

Over the next few weeks Percy just wandered around, not knowing how to return to the world above. There was always some sort of light and after so long in the dark he had trouble coping with it. He tended to sleep by rivers and on the beach. When someone woke him up he'd find a way under water and sleep there in an air bubble.

One day Nico approached him and handed him a mytho-magic statue of Poseidon. "You have to be a kid sometime."

"Ever since I was eleven I couldn't be a kid Nico. You of all people understand that. I had to save Olympus over and over and now... Now, I have to save the world from itself. I can't do it." he took a swig from the wine bottle he'd gotten from Dionysus who had, amazingly, been nice to him since he returned.

"You can Percy. Annabeth never would have given up."

Percy stood and walked away.

"Coward!" Nico yelled.

Percy swung around and threw the bottle at Nico, luckily he was pretty drunk so the glass bottle hit a tree. "Shut up!" he screamed. "You don't understand! No one does! She's there and I'm here. I should have known and stayed behind. She should be here. Not me. Never me."

Nico nearly cried for his friend... No, his brother.

"Why am I here? What is the point Nico. We all die in the end. Don't we? We're all ashes. Dust and ashes. Like that old nursery rhyme." Percy began to hum to himself.

"Leo!" Nico shouted, knowing the boy was there. He always was.

"Yeah?" Leo asked, shuffling out from behind a tree.

"Chiron. Now."

The boy saluted and ran off.

Nico turned back to Percy and saw him rocking back and forth.

"Posies. Are those real flowers? Or did they just make them up so the song rhymed? Annabeth would know. She was so smart. Like Athena. Athena is really smart. She knows a ton of stuff. Stuff I didn't think was real. They had the same eyes. Pretty grey. Almost silver, but not quite."

Chiron approached with a sad expression. "This is what happens. He was not made to handle Tartarus. No one other than the Gods and children of Hades keep their minds after going down there..." he sighed. "Now, the only thing we can do is decide whether or not to let him kill himself..."

Nico looked at his mentor in horror. "What do you mean?! He can't die!"

"So we should allow his mind to deteriorate until he is no more than a shell? He will live life in terror." his arm swept out to a side to get Nico to look at Percy who was now pulling at his hair.

"This is torture, my boy."

Nico gulped. "It is not my choice. Talk to Poseidon." and he vanished into the shadows.

Poseidon, naturally, hated the fact that Chiron was right, but there was nothing they could do for him now. The God submitted and took the one treasure he shared with the love of his life and they both cried over him together. Paul gave them space while he went to grieve on his own, he really had gotten attached to the boy.

They estimated wrong on just how far gone Percy really was.

Sally found him in the bathtub with his life blood gushing from his wrists. It didn't take long for Poseidon to show up with Hades.

Percy was drugged out of his mind and his wrists were bandaged thickly with gauze.

"Put him in Elysium... Please Brother." Poseidon begged, holding Percy close. "Please." tears trickled into his beard.

"It will cost you-" a loud crack sounded through the room and Sally was left glaring at him with her hand stinging.

"You will do this because if you don't I will be damned if you get away with it. He is my son! He _will_ go to Elysium!" she screamed.

Hades nodded mutely.

Sally held her son and sobbed brokenly as the too-large dose of morphine was injected into her son's body and he fell asleep only to stop breathing. "Oh my baby boy. My sweet, sweet baby boy." she moaned.

The funeral was huge. Sally and Paul were allowed to enter Camp Half Blood for the event of Percy's burning. His death shroud was blue like the sea and was decorated in bright green tridents.

Sally held Percy's camp necklace, loudly sobbing as the shroud was lit on fire.

Poseidon looked like a tired old man who had seen too much death and was truly dead on the inside.

Paul was still hoping this was a dream and he really wanted to wake up.

When it was over Poseidon vanished and no one saw him for years.

Sally and Paul aged to be quite old, but they were never the same... Especially Sally.

Somewhere in Tartarus Annabeth was still fighting on, dreaming of the pretty babies her and Percy could had, but would never be.

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**Oh my gosh! I'm gonna go die now. I hate myself. I really, really, REALLY do.**

**Please review!**

**Have a wonderful day/night.**

**Love,**

**The Lonely Goddess**


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